Facilitating Action Learning: A Practitioner's Guide

Action Learning is based on the simple idea that leaders and managers learn best by working together in a group, helping each other find solutions to real work problems through discussions. Facilitating Action Learning is a clear, concise and straightforward guide to this well-established leadership and management development technique.

The role of the facilitator is to provide guidance in the action facilitation process. In this practical guide, Mike Pedler and Christine Abbott present a new threefold model of the facilitator's role - as initiator, set adviser and facilitator of organizational learning.

Supported by many real life cases and practical examples, this superbly practical book shows you how - as a manager, business coach, trainer or facilitator - you can add to your repertoire of skills and abilities, and enhance your effectiveness as a leader and developer.

Suitable as the course text for ILM Level 5 and 7 qualifications in Action Learning Facilitation.

"Christine Abbott and Mike Pedler are to be congratulated for their exceptional and comprehensive guide to Action Learning facilitation. It will be of great help to those just starting out with Action Learning as well as to those who are seasoned practitioners. I am also certain that the pioneer of Action Learning, the late Reg Revans, would have been pleased to see his principles and practices, and those of his closest collaborators, so clearly conceptualized and articulated. A 'must read' book providing a very practical method and approach for all those interested and passionate about helping people help themselves, and in optimizing Action Learning."
Dr Yury Boshyk, Chairman, The Global Executive Learning Network, and the Annual Global Forum on Executive Development and Business Driven Action Learning, Canada

"Packed with useful models and thought provoking explorations of hot topics such as critical action learning, this is a rich and thoughtful companion for the busy practitioner involved in organisational transformation! It tackles head on the thorny issues of facilitation in action learning and presents a helpful framework encompassing a more expansive view, holding together individual and organisational learning. This book best reflects my lived experience of integrating learning and change in a large complex organisation; reading it was like coming home!"
Mandy Chivers, Assistant Chief Executive, Mersey Care NHS Trust, UK

"This is a superb, well-crafted book. In fewer than 200 pages it manages to cover all the essentials while including many important but often-neglected topics. Because of its simplicity and clarity I would readily endorse it for use by novices. Yet it is sufficiently nuanced that I would have no hesitation recommending it to experienced users. While remaining true to the values of Reg Revans' original approach it addresses new developments. It is non-doctrinaire, intelligently acknowledging the current controversies and the variations in present practice. It integrates theory and practice. The balance it achieves between conveying the spirit of action learning while providing concrete and practical tools is exemplary."
Bob Dick, independent scholar, Australia

"With this book, Christine and Mike have brought a significant maturity to the field of action learning. They link theory to practice and vice versa, in an entertaining, challenging and supportive way - as you would expect. This book will go some way in helping action learning advisors improve their craft. An important contribution."
Professor Jeff Gold, Leeds Business School, UK

"Pedler and Abbott have done a masterful job in presenting and analyzing the wide array of roles and responsibilities that one can undertake in facilitating action learning groups. Their understanding of Reg Revans as well as their insights into the history and principles of action learning provide an amazing fabric for this great book."
Michael Marquardt, President, World Institute for Action Learning, USA

"Pedler and Abbot pack lifetimes of experience into this book - which shine through in the depth, breadth, and practicality of its coverage. They map the territory and scaffold the journey a facilitator would follow in building proficiency in Revans' Action Learning from novice to expert in three roles critical to success. Emphasizing systems learning, they also position Action Learning as a natural learning process for social and organizational change, and for developing leadership, partnerships and networks beyond programs. Reflective tools accompany the reader throughout to help practitioners develop their own thinking and practice of Action Learning. This is a must-have for both practitioner and scholar resource libraries!"
Victoria J. Marsick, Professor, Columbia University, Teachers College, New York, USA

"The authors have written a book that is engaging, inspiring and practical - a book to make you think also about learning relationships as constructionist practice; which they put forth as the correct approach and warn against action learning for power, influence and dominance. It is practical enough to give examples of really difficult and 'wicked' puzzles and problems, cases where there are no right or wrong solutions but rather a spectrum of possible scenarios."
Paul Olson

"This is an extremely significant contribution to understanding and developing practices in action learning. It will add value, provide direction and stimulate practitioners and academics in equal measure."
Brian Milsom, University of Hull, UK

Mike Pedler is Emeritus Professor of Action Learning at Henley Business School, University of Reading and a partner in the Centre for Action Learning Facilitation. He has written and edited many books on self-development, action learning and the learning organisation.

Christine Abbott is a partner in the Centre for Action Learning Facilitation. She is an associate of the Open University and Leeds Metropolitan University. A Trustee of the ILM, she was instrumental in writing the qualification standards for action learning.